“One had a knife. But I had a staff and was trained to use it.”

Once again it’s time to go Tough Travelling. So, don your jaunty cap and pack your spotted hanky because we’re off on our travels. The Fantasy Hive are now hosting Tough Travel so don’t forget to head on over there and link up. This month’s theme is:

APPRENTICES.

Apprentices are people who are training for a trade or skill, which means they are usually quite young and bad at what they do. Most of the time they are like nurses during an operation, being there only to hand the master his tools. They seem to have to do this for a good many years before they get to do anything more interesting, and it is therefore not surprising that some of them get restless and either try to do the interesting stuff themselves or simply run away. The Rules state that if an Apprentice tries to do the interesting stuff on their own it will blow up in their face. If they run away, they will learn all sorts of things very quickly and also probably prove to be the MISSING HEIR to a Kingdom.

– Diana Wynne Jones, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland

So, this month, I may have stretched the idea of an apprentice for some of my examples, you can decide. And, as the month of March is Women’s History Month, keeping in the spirit of things (in a loose fashion!) I’ve gone for an all female list – although I desperately wanted Girton (an amazing character from Age of Assassins) to appear on this list. Anyway, this month’s characters are:

Granuaile MacTiernan – apprentice to Atticus O’Sullivan in Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Chronicles. This is a very entertaining series with some great characters, not least of all Oberon – a rather large Irish Wolfhound. Atticus, being the last druid finally relents and takes on an apprentice.

Phèdre nó Delaunay – Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart. Originally trained in Naamah’s arts Phedre becomes a trainee or apprentice to Anafiel Delaunay de Montrève. Along with Alcuin Phedre will learn a number of things, including languages and the art of being covert in preparation for becoming a spy at court.

Vin – from Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Trilogy. Vin starts the novel as a street urchin but pretty soon becomes a trainee after her allomancy abilities are spotted by Kelsier.

Arya Stark from GRRMartin’s Game of Thrones – raised at Winterfell Arya moves to King’s Landing where, not content to play a typical role of the times she receives training in the use of a sword by Syrio Forel – not sure if that isn’t a bit cheeky as the training doesn’t last for too long – however, in a later instalment Arya travels to the House of Black and White where she trains to join the Faceless Men. I figure she goes on the list.

Mia Corvere from Jay Kristoff’s Nevernight Chronicles. Mia is apprenticed to the Red Church. She will train and eventually join their deadly assassins – when hopefully she will have the opportunity to take the revenge she so badly desires.

Agnieszka – from Naomi Kovak’s Uprooted. A small village protected by a powerful sorcerer. Every ten years he chooses a female from the village to be his companion – – sounds a bit hideous but bear with me – anyway, after discovering that one of the girls in the village has magical ability he is forced to take her into his care and train her to the best of his ability. And so Agnieszka becomes a trainee to the most cantankerous and rude sorcerer ever – which is why he’s known as ‘the dragon’.

Pyrre Lakatur – from Brian Staveley’s Skullsworn. A fantastic character to read about indeed – not to mention utterly deadly after years of training. Pyrre needs to pass one final initiation test before becoming a Priestess to the God of Death.

Well, strictly speaking, I think Fitz is the only one that was really called an apprentice? I think most of the others were just simply in training – which is why I think I was probably cheating a little.
Lynn 😀

I almost cheated and went back to see what characters I’d used – that would have been a bit naughty though and I wanted to try and come up with something different. So Skullsworn and Nevernight were fairly recent.
Lynn 😀

Great choices! Nice to see you picked Agnieszka from Uprooted too 🙂 I didn’t even think of Phèdre but true, she was an apprentice. And I think Arya definitely counts – I forgot she was actually an apprentice twice, not just to the Faceless Men but also to Syrio Forel.

I really must read Skullsworn – it’s been on my list for a while now and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it when I do (I loved the Emperor’s Blades trilogy).

Skullsworn was just so good. I think you’ll love it. I haven’t read the Emperor’s Blades so can’t really say how it compares but the general feeling was that this book lived up to the series and more.
Lynn 😀